Painting Bugs

It is Paint Party Friday and here is what is on the easel:

with these two butterflies and one moth that will hopefully resemble something like these pictures:

Butterflies as Photographed by C. Marley

Flipping through the pages of Christopher Marley's Pheromone coffee table book of bugs and other insect critters makes me gasp at all the colors they wear on their backs.  Philippine weevils don't seem to care that wearing bright red makes them look fat.

Yesterday I bought a 24"x30" canvas.  I'll paint three butterflies, side by side, mixing up spatial orientation.  Don't the colors seem unreal?  Here are my picks from Marley's book:

Marley's background was always white.  I am thinking a warm background of yellow/burnt copper. What is you favorite butterfly and which one would you omit?

This video was first published by Linda on her blog today, and it is worth a listen.

He Listens in Color

Dragonflies in Oil

One fine summer afternoon, a young fairy leaned over the bank of a creek to drink, but slipped and fell into the water. Now the current carried her away quickly like a wisp of wheat. Unfortunately, the fairy had left the magic wand in the grass, but no one was lost.

Fortunately the water fairies came to help, with a clap of hands made up by the river wave that lifted the fairy to the blue of the sky. While falling, small drops of water were transformed into dragonflies …. that’s why it seems that between the transparent wings of a dragonfly is entangled a drop of water.
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16" x 20", Oil, Copyright Nancy McCarroll
PPF

Artists in Blogland

...Like dragonflies, the hansoms hover,

With jeweled eyes, to catch the lover...

             (Richard Le Gallienne)

UPDATE: Just as I was finished hanging the above picture in our kitchen this morning, a dragonfly, very large, about three inches in length, flew into my study.  I took his picture (below).  I wonder what he was trying to tell me? Unbelievable!

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday

Linking to WOWW, two things/tasks/fun projects are on my outdoor table just begging to be finished:

The first is the Different Lines Shawl, a lovely pattern that can be purchased here. It uses complementary colors and results in stripes (mostly) with two borders in a solid color.  About a thousand people on Ravelry have completed it with fantastic results.  Here is a link to see what others have knit with this pattern.


And the second work in progress is a painting of dragonflies on a yellow/chartreuse background. It started out in acrylics, but it will likely end in oils.

My lower back has been out of commission, probably due to working in the yard AND bending over this dragonfly canvas!

What is on YOUR work desk?  Go here to link up your projects.

Hollyhocks, and Note to Self

The frisket I was using was old.  It was too thick and would not rub off the paper; ruined my hollyhock and pig picture. Kept trying. Failed.

  Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men and animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock.

~ Henry Ward Beecher (June 24, 1813 - March 08, 1887)

 Updated 7/17/12 with frisket still there:

Must try to watercolor hollyhocks again.  Get new frisket at store.

Watercolor Tutorials Overview

Betty, this one's for you.  Over at the WoodFairy blog, Betty got me back into painting on silk. She had asked for a tutorial on watercolor techniques, so I will gladly oblige.  This may be a bit tedious, so we shall see how it goes.

Not only will there be one, but there will also be several tutorials focusing on using watercolor paints on 140 lb. watercolor paper.  I will add each lesson on the sidebar as they progress and time allows.

Tutorial Outline

• Materials needed: watercolors, at least 140 lb. watercolor paper, brushes, water, ruler, palette knives, miskit, cloth or paper rags to start.  Paint tubes of watercolors are available in hundred of colors.  They will last years and it takes just a dab of color on a palette.  When the paint dries, just add a wet brush and the lively shades reappear on the brush.  Sable brushes are best, but brush prices vary, so just be sure you have a half dozen brushes in various sizes that are dedicated to watercolors and have no oil or acrylic residue left in the hairs.

But I am getting carried away.  (an entire lesson on just materials to follow)

• 2.  Material preparation, including soaking of water, wet on wet, wet on dry, etc.  (another lesson)
• 3.  Choosing your subject  ... the less lines the better as we start off.  Perhaps you might choose a coloring book picture to replicate.
• 4.  Drawing in the subject you will be painting in pencil...pencil marks will be erased after color is applied. (another lesson on using the grid method for ease in replication of drawing in a picture if you are not painting from a still life)  And using the internet to check accuracy of completing subjects drawn ( ...i.e., porcine feet)
• 5.  Using miskit barriers (another lesson)
• 6.  Choosing your palette colors.  Look to the great artists and determine the colors they use in a painting that you are particularly drawn to.  An example below highlights colors I like with pinks, purples, yellows, whites, greens, and blues.  How many shades of just green can you count?

source (Frederick Frieseke (1874-1939)The Garden in June 1911)

 ...and then creating your own palette from the colors you have acquired (another lesson)

(the palette I made and use)

• 7.  Painting, shading, backgrounds, salt preparation for backgrounds
• 8.  Finishing techniques

There are probably more parts that will be added later.  Stay tuned!  And if you would care to view a few of my watercolors, they are displayed here.

Queen of the Italian Pigs, the Cinta Sensa

The breed of Cinta Sensa, a Tuscan pig, was most notably used for racing in prior times, but now the source of gourmet, pricey meat.

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Toscana and Chianti News says:

you can find examples of these animals in very old paintings, in the fresco “Good Government” by Ambrogio Lorenzetti for example, on display at the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, there is a farmer walking with his Senese pig held by a leash. This special kind of pig is also visible in paintings by Bartoli di Fredi ... also in a more recent painting by Giovanni Fattori. 

The Cinta Senese is the forefather of all the Tuscan pigs. It is almost savage and very resistant to bad weather, for these reasons it represented a secure food reserve for the farmers and their families. This type of swine grows very slowly (the slaughtering age is never less than 12 months) and this is one of the reasons to why farmers, in the past, abandoned this race in favour of races which grow much faster. The pigs are raised half wild feeding in the woods and on pasture hills and fields. 

They are immediately recognisable thanks to its large white “belt” around the neck on the black body, they have a short and thin bristle, a pointed nose, sloping ears and a slanting, robust back. The fragrant pork is optimal for cooking but it’s mainly used for the production of various kinds of tasty cold cuts. Classical are the “prosciutto alla spalla” (shoulder ham) and the “salami al lardo e il capocollo” (salami of lard and top neck); typical Tuscan products of the highest quality that you just can’t resist.

"Good Government” by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1338

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Giovanni Fattori, "Two Pigs on Pasture"

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My daughter and I were lucky enough to visit the Tuscan area together in 1997, and shopped at a specialty meat shop in San Gimignana (Town of Towers).  If you look closely, the Cinta Sensa boar heads are at the top of the picture on either side of the entry into the shop.  (Daughter Heidy is posed next to a wild hare.)

1997

We tasted some of the Tuscan boar, along with other specialty items.  I just remember the meat was spicy, and the day was cold, rainy and very dark; not surprising that the camera was not well focused.

I'll be posting some watercolors of these pigs later this week.  Here is my start to a sketch of "Queens Of Italian Pigs" that will be painted with watercolors: 

Finches

...for PPF

 (Watercolor on canvas)

My mother always called it a nest, the multi-colored mass harvested from her six daughters' brushes, and handed it to one of us after she had shaped it, as we sat in front of the fire drying our hair. She said some birds steal anything, a strand of spider's web, or horse's mane, the residue of sheep's wool in the grasses near a fold where every summer of her girlhood hundreds nested. Since then I've seen it for myself, their genius— how they transform the useless. I've seen plastics stripped and whittled into a brilliant straw, and newspapers—the dates, the years— supporting the underweavings. As tonight in our bed by the window you brush my hair to help me sleep, and clean the brush as my mother did, offering the nest to the updraft. I'd like to think it will be lifted as far as the river, and catch in some white sycamore, or drift, too light to sink, into the shaded inlets, the bank-moss, where small fish, frogs, and insects lay their eggs. Would this constitute an afterlife? The story goes that sailors, moored for weeks off islands they called paradise, stood in the early sunlight cutting their hair. And the rare birds there, nameless, almost extinct, came down around them and cleaned the decks and disappeared into the trees above the sea.  Darwin's Finches by Deborah Digges

(Close up from watercolor above 5/31/12: NAM)

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Frog's a Jumpin'

...on silk

Dimensions finished: 16" x 20" under glass; mat size opening: 10.5" x 13.5"

I finally completed a frog painted on  8 mm silk with colors that blended correctly.  It was set with steam for three hours on top of the stove, then ironed and matted and placed in a purchased frame under glass.

Close up of Mr. Frog who is about 11" in length

This was one I painted a few weeks ago on thinner silk, using basically the same line drawing, but with less dye, and transparent gutta, making a softer effect:

Minnemie first painted a frog on lily pads in watercolors.  She was kind enough to let me take inspiration from her art.  I loved the way she made the colors flow, and thought it would make up well in silk. (please do make a visit to her blog as she shows her wonderful watercolors here on her blog).  Minnemie also quotes nice verse along with her painting.  You will enjoy her musings.

A Nice Pair of Socks and a Watercolor

...are finished.  Hermione's Everyday Socks were knit from a free pattern available here on Ravelry.  It is the second pair I've knit from that same pattern.

The yarn was purchased almost two years ago at The Rummer Tavern in Cardiff, Wales at a meet up with independent yarn dyers.  Thanks, "Jellybean," for this nice sock yarn you dyed in autumn colors.

The heel was knit in a different yarn just for the grins of it.  It took about two weeks to knit this pair.  And that yarn is exactly the colors in my old Keen Sandals...

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Then I saw a little bird that I thought would look cute hanging on a clothes line with my knitted socks, so I drew it and painted it in those Derwent Inktense pencils.  Here it is:

(Next time I'll use watercolor paper; this was painted on a canvas board...not such a good idea, but fun.)

Inspiration Avenue Challenge: A Mother's Hand

Happy Mothers' Day to All

Inspiration Avenue, hosted by Shelley and her mom, Loretta, is challenging you to participate in something to do with a mother's hands.  Loretta says...

Did you know that the word hand appears in the King James Bible 1296 times? Now that definitely shows us how important hands were to God, our creator. Don’t you know He put a lot of thought into creating our hands, knowing all the things they would do for us in our day to day activities?

Being uninspired, but loving the picture of my mother and me in 2000 just before she died, I used it as a tool to try and draw my mother's hands; in this case, it was her left hand.  

I had always loved her hands.  Those bright red fingernails were one of her fashion signatures.

This is the sketchbook drawing:

And here is mother's (cropped) left hand.

It was a true art challenge, but it was a way to say "Happy Mother's Day" in a fond remembrance.

Please go here and join in the challenge.

also for ppf

National Poetry Month and a Creative Challenge

On Inspiration Avenue, and in conjunction with National Poetry Month, we have a weekly challenge.

April is National Poetry Month and in honor of that... a challenge to revolve around poetry, but also include other forms of the written word, a favorite quote, or novel, or perhaps merely a special word. What inspires you, and how does it make you feel? Pour out those feelings artistically! Whether in oils, collage, watercolor, mixed media, photography, digital art... anything goes, just express it!

Iris are fun to paint, and inspire me.  So I decided to find a poem about iris and then paint one or two.  Here is a poem about iris written by Edith Buckner Edwards in 1961:

Iris, most beautiful flower,
Symbol of life, love, and light;
Found by the brook, and the meadow,
Or lofty, on arable height.
You come in such glorious colors,
In hues, the rainbow surpass;
The chart of color portrays you,
In petal, or veins, of your class.
You bloom with the first in Winter,
With the last, in the Fall, you still show;
You steal the full beauty of Springtime,
With your fragrance and sharp color glow.
Your form and beauty of flower,
An artist's desire of full worth;
So Iris, we love you and crown you,
MOST BEAUTIFUL FLOWER ON EARTH!

Inspired by iris, I got out the silk paints and spread them and all the paraphenalia that goes along with painting on silk, and began this painting with iris as the theme.  It took about a week to complete.  It is ready to frame in a convenient size of 16" x 20".  This is my answer to the Inspiration Avenue weekly challenge.

Jacquard Silk Paints

They arrived, the silk paints, that is.

Their colors are varied and the maker numbers are 721, 745, 701, 722, 712, 730, 715, and 735 in addition to the 11 year old colors (number 717, 732, 706 and 701) that are just becoming depleted.  Love the vibrancy.

Works in progress that needed extra colors are this

and this

Finished works tomorrow?

RookiePainter Entry for March 2012

There are many fun places in blogger land to see others' artwork and challenge yourself with improving your personal art skills.  Some sites I found to peruse other works and to enter art challenges are:

RookiePainter

Sketching in Nature

The Jane Eyre Challenge at Pen and Ink

Inspiration Avenue

At the Rookiepainter, the current contest in March is to provide a sketch or drawing of this photo of a drawing of a copper pot and a silver pot:

This is my pitiful rendition:

It definitely reeks of rookiness, compared to some other entries, although I think the silver pot is pretty good (watercolor on art card).

Go go the RookiePainter blog to enter the contest and see some beautiful watercolors!

Green Man Forest Legend

That ubiquitous symbol of the Green Man is prevalent in European countries.  He is found on doorways and pub walls, in hotel entrances and outdoor venues, and of course, in the forest.  He comes in many forms and looks quite different each time you spot him.

(pinterest)

The Green Man

...is that spirit, energy, presence, inherent in every cell of the vegetative realm, and transmitted to the animal/human realms through the foods we eat, the flowers we smell, the trees we hug. He is Pan.

The Green Man I found online is cast iron and is weathering nicely on our back yard gate where he has kept company with the outdoor creatures for just over a year.  Here is our green man, guardian of the gate,  ready for a bit of artificial ivy to be twined around his head when the weather turns a bit warmer.

Yesterday I laid in a supply of green acrylics and will paint our garden shed door with a green man face so that he can keep the dogs company while they play outdoors.  This is a rough picture of the green man I'll paint on the shed bi-fold doors, starting today, hopefully:

Look for an update next week on the Green Man permanently residing on the outdoor shed.  Those acrylic paints last a long time.